Talk:Prussian Holocaust

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[edit] From WP:RfD:

  • Prussian Holocaust - POV term of very limited usage. A significant parst of google hits is from several wikipedia's artices and mushroomed mirrors. It is proposed to discuss this issue at the VfD page Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Prussian Holocaust for broader participation. Mikkalai 23:05, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • This is currently the subject of a VfD debate - should this listing be deleted, in favour of the one there? Noel (talk) 01:12, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • I have closed the VfD. The result was no consensus. This article will not be deleted as a result of the VfD discussion. I suggest that the RFD also be closed (I've left the RFD tag there for now). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:54, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Delete. The result of VfD-debate was 12 delete (as redirect or article), 5 keep, 2 no vote. Some of the arguments the "Keep"-votes were based on turned out to be wrong. How big the majority has to be? Jesusfreund 20:11, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • The redirect does no harm and might conceivably be useful. Nobody managed to create a consensus contradicting this, or present convincing arguments. The redirect stays. — Helpful Dave 22:03, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Keep. I closed the deletion process and determined that there was no consensus to delete. My criterion is that something clearly over 80% is definitely deletable, over 75% I'm looking hard at individual votes, 75% or less I usually determine to be no consensus. And it does not seem right to me that a redirect should be subject to two deletion processes, but if we're going to rerun I will exert my vote on principle to keep, because that seemed to me to to be the result of the earlier process and I think this should be reflected somehow in the votes on this much more exclusive venue. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:19, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Weakish keep. Not only does this not seem to me to fit any of the qualifications or precedents for deleting a redirect, but it could be useful under reason not to delete #2 (preventing accidental article duplication). The term is used in reality (well, a little bit) and is mentioned in the article redirected to (well, a little bit). Nickptar 22:16, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • User:Helpful Dave's opinion I find obnoxious (manipulating Wikipedia for the purposes of any political propaganda is harmful, and the harm is multiplied x100 when the political ends the propogands serves are neo-nazi ones: were there encyclopedic value to the term there would be a case for an NPOV article documenting the term's usage would have value, but since there is no such value this point is moot, a redirect is in any case POV), but I think it is out of order to use this as a second referendum. Since the page was not a rediect at the time of any votes, I propose firstly keep and that we interpret the keep votes as indicating a brief article summarising the facts along the lines of It appears that some editors with sympathies for neonazi causes wish the term Prussian Holocaust to be regarded as a synonym for Evacuation of East Prussia, although at the time of writing this term is not used outside of Wikipedia. This motives of these editors appear to be to ground a moral equivalency argument between this event and the Shoah, a strategy used elsewhere such as with Bombing of Dresden in World War II. Note that most of the keep votes in the VfD process were ambiguous, and a plain redirect would be inconsistent with neutrality. In three months or so, we can start the VfD process again, hopefully with a more useful-idiot-proof formlation of the case for deletion. --- Charles Stewart 08:17, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Keep, and I agree strongly w Chammy Koala. Sam Spade 11:49, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Keep. The worh "holocaust" is abused in numerous other cases; Jews did not happen to put a trademark upon it, and I am sure over time more "microholocausts" will appear. The fact that the term is someone's propaganda effort it irelevant. Want it or not, neonazis are visible, and their terminology must be known. (BTW, I don't know whether the "PH" is nenonazi's invention. It is obvious that there are quite a few Germans who have direct reasons to genuive feelings of this kind) Mikkalai 17:37, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Actually the term pre-dates nazism, and was used to describe a WWI library burning. I quote:
      German troops marched into Leuven, which was shortly before declared an open city. On the 25th of august, the Belgian army launched a counterattack. The Belgian army broke through the German defence lines at certain points, and pushed them back towards Leuven. There anxious civilians and German soldiers listened to the thundering gunfire. In the evening, when the battle was over, German troops marched back into Leuven. And then disaster happened. The German soldiers in Leuven who had been waiting for their comrades to return from the battlefield, mistook them for Belgian soldiers and commenced firing. Several German soldiers were killed or wounded. As soon as they realised what really happened, they falsely accused the civilians of Leuven of having cowardly shot German soldiers. Revenge was swift and brutal. During the next days hundreds of civilians were murdered or deported, more than a thousand houses and public buildings were destroyed. Our university library unfortunately went up in flames. Not one book or manuscript survived the inferno.
      The destruction of Leuven and especially its library provoked an international scandal. Amongst many others Sir Arthur Evans protested in a letter to The Times:
      'Sir, may I be allowed to voice the horror and profound indignation at the Prussian holocaust of Louvain. (…) The holocaust of Louvain should at least have the effect of electrifying all the more intellectual elements of our country with a new vigour of determination to overthrow the ruthless regime of blood and iron imposed by Prussian arrogance on 20th century Europe.' (The Times, september 1st , 1914).[1]
      Sam Spade 21:03, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Closed deletion listing

This article was listed for deletion on 10 April 2005. The discussion was closed with the result of no consensus. This article will not be deleted. You can view the discussion, which is no longer live: Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Prussian Holocaust. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:51, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Status of this page

Note that there is no consensus for this page to be a redirect, and it would violate the neutrality of wikipedia to make it one, besides being offensive and serving the cause of right-extremism. Please do not turn this page into a redirect without first arguing the case here. The opposing case was made on the VfD, please understand the case before doing anything stupid. --- Charles Stewart 10:35, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hindu Holocaust, Black Holocaust, Aboriginal Holocaust, Native American Holocaust, Kirisutan Holocaust, Armenian Holocaust, Hellenic Holocaust, Ukrainian Holocaust, Gay Holocaust, Jewish Holocaust, Chinese Holocaust and Asian Holocaust

  1. ipedia.com: Prussian Holocaust: Soviet rape and murder bands attacked East Prussia, raping and killing women and killing all men. Survivors trudged in great columns through the snow at -25°C, fleeing through the blizzards and shell fire. The German population of East Prussia was systematically eliminated.
  2. Serebella.com: The Prussian Holocaust: None of these (from list) resulted in war crimes prosecutions.
  3. llpoh.org/Reviewing_the_20th_century: Prussian Holocaust: Soviet rape and murder bands attacked East Prussia, raping and killing women and killing all men.
  4. encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com: "Some have claimed that it was a case of ethnic clensing, or even genocide, and they use the term "Prussian Holocaust" to describe these events."
  5. informationblast.com: "Prussian Holocaust: Soviet rape and murder bands attacked East Prussia."
  • The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent 1945-2002 - William I. Hitchcock - 2003 - ISBN 0385497989
  • Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, A Terrible Revenge, St. Martin's Press, 1994 — ISBN 0312121598

Your not just being stupid BTW, your being offensively POV. Sam Spade 11:37, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] this is no NPOV term!

This is clearly an highly opinionated and historically doubtful term and this should be noted, not simply redirected. If this edit-war goes on I will ask an admin to freeze the article. I am from Germany, and I have met some prussian revanchist lunatics, but even they did not babble of a prussian holocaust. This is sickening. -- 790 22:01, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Controversial where?

Please cite a source for these bizarre opinions:

those who oppose it consider it to be a form of Holocaust denial, arguing that the name attempts to create a moral equivalence between the two events.

That simply doesn't make any sense, how is describing an event as a holocaust denying another event? If it is, do these same unknown sources dispute other forms of holocaust? Are these unnamed sources aware that the word holocaust is greek, w ancient origins and usages? Sam Spade 23:12, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

What the devil do you mean, "bizarre opinions"? I simply made a statement of fact about the reasoning of those who oppose use of the term - see, for example, the opinions of User:790 and Charles Stewart (above). And as for the motives behind the use of the term "Holocaust", if you can't (or won't) see that the term is an attempt to create a moral equivalence with The Holocaust, you're simply being obtuse. The choice of the word "Holocaust" was not a chance usage; plenty of other words (e.g. "eviction", "catastrophe", "disposession", "victimization", "eradication", "extirpation", "expulsion", etc) would have been just as good, without the unavoidable baggage that comes with using "Holocaust" in a Nazi/WWII setting.
Note also that my note made no statements about the people using the term being neo-Nazis or anything; it simply described the arguments of the people who oppose the use of the term. Noel (talk) 04:53, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Wiki-users are not citable sources, please review Cite your sources. Sam Spade 12:35, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

If so, then please cite academic sources that would use the term. Halibutt 13:01, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
Exactly. I did take a look online, but I could find only two pages (outside of Wikipedia clones) that used this term! One seems to be a page by someone who's (understandably) upset about the horrible treatment of the Prussians, and the other is the letters page of what is clearly an anti-semitic site. Based on that standard, this page shouldn't even exist, but since it failed VfD/RfD we're stuck with it. However, with a term that is so thinly sourced, you're being unreasonable to require outside sources for what's patently obvious.
I mentioned the Wikipedia members (above) simply as data to back up the point that I'm not just making this analysis up on my own, that there are other people who feel that way.
However, if you insist, I will whip up a web page attacking the term, and place it on my web site (which is just as significant a source as the one I listed above, the only Web article about the term), and then someone else here can use that as a source to put back the text explaining why those who don't like the term consider it unacceptable. Noel (talk) 13:30, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

WP:POINT? Sam Spade 18:20, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Not at all. I want the page to explain why the usage is controversial, and you refuse to have it say anything unless it's "sourced". So I'm going to provide a source. Noel (talk) 16:32, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
I also notice that both here, and in my post above (at 04:53, 6 May) you have no response to most of the points in my post, but pick one minor, tangential issue to reply on - first sourcing, and now this bogus charge of POINT. If you have any kind of good case, why don't you actually reply to my points, instead of going off on tangents? Noel (talk) 16:41, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
Mr. Spade, you should really ask that question to yourself in the first place. it is YOU who ignores any discourse, it is YOU who puts up the NPOV flags about single words, it is YOU who repeats and repeats controversial edits with hardly any compromise. -- 790 20:23, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

ME ME ME! Do you have something substantive to say, or are you just here to make more personal attacks? Sam Spade 20:39, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Sam, it's not about personal attacks but about truth. Simply, the fact is that the very term "Prussian holocaust" is not only highly disputable, but also seems not to be used by anyone outside of wikipedia. Unless you have some sources that would prove otherwise, I suggest we redirected this entry to the proper article - or at least described the name as extremely rare and highly disputable. Halibutt 01:14, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

How many redirects or disambig pages on the wiki have disclaimers pointing out that they are obscure? As far as citations for the usage, see:

[2][3][4][5]

and

The Modern Language Review, 1 April 2003, vol. 98, no. 2, pp. 367-380(14)

Sam Spade 01:38, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Spade, you don't seem to undertake the effort to read your own sources. One has not even the word holocaust, one refers to Leuven, and two are mega-POV. Wikipedia cannot reflect the opinions of every radical poltical minority, this refers to far-right Prussians, too. -- 790 06:49, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
Actually documenting obscure facts and organisations is kinda the point, WINP. Sam Spade 13:48, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
But you refuse to let the page say that it's obscure, and used only in certain arcane circles. Noel (talk) 16:32, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Actually I'm ok w pointing out that its arcane or obscure. Sam Spade 17:01, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discussing an editor rather than the article

Sam Spade seems to do his edits in bad faith with the purpose to push his views rather than improve wikipedia. At least this is an impression I get from his either ignoring the discussion at the talk pages or responding outside the point or making bogus citations or trying to make opponents loose their temper. Sometimes he makes a valid point or two, but when other editors try to engage him into discussions on them, he either does not respond, or his responses are hardly related or totally unrelated. In the meantime he continues reverting the changes to the article that other editors make and discuss at the talk page. This is very disruptive and makes talk pages resemble many forum of political demagogy already abundant on the net. This obstructs the possibility to achieve compromise versions based on facts and neutral interpretations.Irpen 17:30, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Please discuss the article here, and other editors on their talk page, or applicable policy pages. Sam Spade 17:45, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

==Problem: controvearticle is about events not called by

I meant to discuss the edits to the article, rather than the editor's personality. And coming back to the article, the claim I inserted that the term "PH" is not used among mainstream historians is easy to refute by citing examples of serious historians using it, if there are any. The reversion by Sam Spade accompanied by his call to cite non-acceptance is meaningless, to put it mildly. How can a lack of use be conformed by citation? Just think for a minute! It is the usage that should be confirmed. The term whose acceptance among historians is being questioned has to be sourced by whoever brings it. So, until someone cites the usage of "Prussian Holocaust" by any mainstream historian, the remark in the article about its non-acceptance is valid. Irpen 06:39, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Making it more of an article about the TERM itself

The call to source the usage of this term has been up at this and Talk:Evacuation_of_East_Prussia#The_term_"Prussian_Holocaust" pages long enough and since no sources were cited, I think it is legitimate to conclude that the term has no acceptance among serious authors. In view of this, it seems unencyclopedic to have this article in previous form which, basically, just said that the user may be looking for something else and directed the user to where this info may be found. The term itself may deserve an article. So the article is changed accordingly. Please explain at the talk page if choose to revert, and please treat the subject seriously. Of course it goes without saying that my version could be improved. And also, please no flames and personal attacks. Irpen 03:19, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Given we have to have the page at all, I'm very happy with what you have done with it. --- Charles Stewart 17:21, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't expect it's really necessary to say "me too", since the new intro echoes phraseology I tried to add a while back, but here's my formal agreement anyway. Noel (talk) 18:26, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Leuven WWI

I have removed the reference to the WWI episode:

The burning of a Belgian library and general sack of the town of Leuven by German troops in the World War I. [6]

Which is based on a single reference in a sinlge document, to a letter published in The Times in 1914 (the URL has moved to here)

(from "Do We Want to Keep our Newspapers? CHAPTER 4: Why Leuven University Library (Belgium) accepted eight tons of old newspapers from the British Library" by Jan van Impe):
The destruction of Leuven and especially its library provoked an international scandal. Amongst many others Sir Arthur Evans protested in a letter to The Times:
'Sir, may I be allowed to voice the horror and profound indignation at the Prussian holocaust of Louvain. (…) The holocaust of Louvain should at least have the effect of electrifying all the more intellectual elements of our country with a new vigour of determination to overthrow the ruthless regime of blood and iron imposed by Prussian arrogance on 20th century Europe.' (The Times, september 1st , 1914).

As Holocaust (disambiguation) makes clear, such usage of the term "holocaust" as a general description was common prior to the Shoah becoming the default reference for the term. This one instance is no more noteworthy than hundreds of others referring to hundreds of crimes great and small. I have removed the Disambig tag, which was inappropriate anyway, since this was never simply a pointer to another page, as the previous discussions show. jnestorius(talk) 22:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

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